Jens F. Laurson: I write about politics, culture, and economics. At various times I have worked with the CATO Institute, written for the Washington Post, contributed to Washington's Public Radio Station, and made tasty sandwiches on Capitol Hill. My bent is libertarian, my background European, my passion classical music and its economics. For an essay on the late-romantic composer Hans Rott in Listen Magazine I won a 2012 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award.……………………………………………………………… George Pieler: I write extensively about taxes, budgets, philanthropy, technology and culture. After stints on Capitol Hill (Reagan Revolution) and the Education Department (school choice), I co-founded DC's private voucher program and consulted for several market-oriented think tanks. As a practicing lawyer I parse words carefully and take the Constitution seriously. I like my markets free and my government limited.

David Cameron's Initiative May Strenghten The EU For Questioning It

British Prime Minister David Cameron delivers his long-awaited speech on the UK's relationship with the EU on January 23, 2013 in London, England. Mr Cameron has promised a referendum on EU membership should the Conservatives win the next election. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

British Prime Minister David Cameron promises a referendum on the UK’s already discounted European Union membership if he is reelected. By 2017, the projected date of the referendum, he wants to finish negotiating a new deal with the EU more favorable to Britain and reflecting the value Cameron—and presumably many Britons—place on EU-membership. The last point is crucial, since Cameron assumes—or at least claims—that a renewed deal, more responsive to British needs, will find approval with the voters, and that he will then vigorously campaign for keeping EU membership.

It’s a brilliant political stroke: hardened British Euro skeptics will have a bone to chew on for four years, with the glimmer of EU-exit hope before their eyes. Done and dealt with! UK Independence Party kept at bay. Check! And the soft Euro skeptics (who isn’t, unless in the EU’s direct employ?) don’t have to fear a snappy exit, but get the enticing possibility of a better EU, with greater UK exemptions perhaps, or less cost, or less bureaucracy, or all of the above. Bingo!

If it is said to be “a gamble”, domestically it isn’t… it’s as close to a win-win as Cameron could have construed. It’s not a gamble for Britain internationally, either. Even the unquestioned-yet-assumed “worst case scenario” of an exit would hardly be the end of the world for Britain. Neither Europe nor the UK would lift the drawbridges or close the chunnel; free trade would continue; trade agreements previously covered by membership would be replaced with individual agreements where terms would even have to be spelled out. Norway and Switzerland might arguably do even better in the EU, but they still show that an extra-EU existence for a European country does not mean destitution. Finally, while individual recipients of EU subsidies might suffer, England & Friends would carry on.

It’s impossible to say definitively that decoupling will not happen: if a straight-up referendum is put to the British people, they could say Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehen, and Good Riddance. It’s just not very likely. David Cameron knows that, for a host of reasons (not all moored in first-order reality), the EU’s important member states do not want—indeed: cannot imagine—an exit of one of its most important members, however difficult that member has proven to be. Concessions will be made, token, procedural, and symbolic ones where possible; real ones where necessary. Enough, in any case, to give Cameron ammunition to support continued EU membership.

That’s all good for Cameron and presumably for Britain, but it’s also good for the EU. The greatest service Cameron could perform for the EU is not asking to further minimize the UK’s share of the financial burden, but insisting on structural reform within the EU, and exemptions from EU regulation for the UK where he can’t get them. (Hint: include populist items like the industry lobbied sham of a light-bulb ban or the lunacy of Parliament sessions vacillating between Strasbourg and Brussels; we assume sights are already set on the transactions tax aimed at undermining London’s financial center status.) In doing so Cameron will show Britons and his EU partners that he isn’t in it for sheer selfishness, but out of real concern for making the EU a better apparatus and a better fit for the UK and the continent as well. In short: that it isn’t all about the money, but how it is spent, about how efficient the EU’s mechanisms work, and how to overcome its persistent problems. Problems, in short, that are hardly UK-specific but shared by many if not all members.

It’s an optimistic note, indeed, but the Cameron initiative may cause a re-think among politicians and the populations of EU countries. It may further genuine EU-reform. Most importantly, it questions the EU-as-is. It gives the EU a chance to show it is not just assumed to be accepted, but that it might genuinely lead Europe without alienating popular sentiment in its member countries. Indeed this might just be the beginning of popular legitimacy for the EU, something European commissioners and politicians have been (unintentionally) working very hard to undermine and dismantle, over the last 30 years. How ironic that it should be the British Prime Minister to give the EU such a glorious opportunity.

P.S. Cynics: Be equally excited about guessing which country will be first to nix any notion of sensible reform.

Jens F. Laurson is editor-at-large of the International Affairs Forum. George A. Pieler is an attorney and free-lance writer.

Edit, 1/28/2013:As has been rightly pointed out below, the UK is of course not a founding member of the EU (which is to say: EEC) by any stretch. The above text has been corrected to reflect reality more closely.

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Get your facts right. The United Kingdom is not a founding member of the European Union. Rather it is the only country whose request to join has been refused twice, and only accepted when the UK refused to take “no” for an answer, and asked to join a third time.

Pardon me, sharepass, you are not correct. The EU itself lists its founding year as a POLITICAL entity as 1993, post-Maastricht. The UK was indeed an original member in 1993. Your discussion refers to the European Community, which the UK joined in 1973. While the EC led directly to the EU, it was an economic union only, not a political one. Our discussion refers to Cameron’s initiative as pertains to the political union. We agree though: please do get your facts right, and thanks for reading.

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